Rorty's Antipodeans

From Rorty's book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Far away, on the other side of the galaxy, there was on planet on which lived beings like ourselves – featherless bipeds who built houses and bombs, and wrote poems and computer programs. These beings did not know they had minds. They had notions like “wanting to” and “intending to” and “believing that” and “feeling terrible” and “feeling marvelous”. But they had no notion that these signified mental states - states of a peculiar and distinct sort - quite different from "sitting down", "having a cold", and "being sexually aroused". Although they used the notion of believing and knowing and wanting and being moody of their pets and their robots as well as themselves, they did not regard their pets or their robots as included in what was meant when they said, "We all believe..." or "We never do such things as..." That is to say, they treated only members of their own species as persons. But they did not explain the differences between persons and non-persons by such notions as "mind", "consciousness", "spirit", or anything of the sort. They did not explain it at all; they just treated it as the difference between "us" and everything else. They believed in immortality for themselves, and a few believed that this would be shared by the pets or the robots, or both. But this immortality did not involve the notion of a "soul" which separated from the body. It was a straightforward matter of bodily resurrection followed by a mysterious and instantaneous motion to what they referred to as "a place above the heavens" for good people, and to a sort of cave, beneath the planet's surface, for the wicked. Their philosophers were concerned primarily with four topics: the nature of Being, proofs of the existence of a Benevolent and Omnipotent Being who would carry out arrangements for resurrection, problems arising out of discourse about nonexistent objects, and the reconciliation of conflicting moral intuitions. But these philosophers had not formulated the problem of subject and object, nor that of mind and matter. There was a tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism, but Locke's "veil of ideas" was unknown, since the notion of an "idea" or "perception" or "mental representation" was also unknown. Some of their philosophers predicted that the beliefs about immortality which had been central in earlier periods of history, and which were still held by all but the intelligentsia, would someday be replaced by a "positivistic" culture purged of all superstitions (but these philosophers made no mention of an intervening "metaphysical" stage).

In most respects, then, the language, life, technology, and philosophy of this race were much like ours. But there was one important difference. Neurology and biochemistry had been the first disciplines in which technological breakthroughs had been achieved, and a large part of conversation of these people concerned the state of their nerves. When their infants veered towards hot stoves, mothers cried out, "He'll stimulate his C-fibers." When people were given clever visual illusions to look at, they said, "How odd! It makes neuronic bundle G-14 quiver, but when I look at it from the side I can see that it's not a red rectangle at all." Their knowledge of physiology was such that each well formed sentence in the language which anybody bothered to form could easily be correlated with a readily identifiable neural state. This state occurred whenever someone uttered, or was tempted to utter, or heard, the sentence. This state also sometimes occurred in solitude and people reported such occasions with remarks like "I was suddenly in state S-296, so I put out the milk bottles." Sometimes they would say things like "It looked like an elephant, but then it struck me that elephants don't occur on this continent, so I realized that it must be a mastodon." But they would also sometimes say, in just the same circumstances, things like, "I had G-412 together with F-11, but then I had S-147, so I realized that it must be a mastodon." They thought of mastodons and milk bottles as objects of beliefs and desires, and as causing certain neural processes. They viewed these neural processes as interacting causally with beliefs and desires - in just the same way as the mastodons and milk bottles did. Certain neural processes could be deliberately self-induced, and some people were more skillful than others in inducing certain neural states in themselves. Others were skilled at detecting certain special states which most people could not recognize in themselves.

In the middle of the twenty-first century, and expedition from Earth landed on this planet. The expedition included philosophers, as well as representatives of every other learned discipline. The philosophers thought that the most interesting thing about the natives was their lack of the concept of mind. They joked among themselves that they had landed among a bunch of materialists, and suggested the name Antipodea for the planet - in reference to an almost forgotten school of philosophers, centering in Australia and New Zealand, who in the previous century had attempted one of the many futile revolts against Cartesian dualism in the history of Terran philosophy. The name stuck, and so the new race of intelligent beings came to be known as Antipodeans. The Terran neurologists and biochemists were fascinated by the wealth of knowledge in their field which the Antipodeans exhibited. Since technical conversation on these subjects was conducted almost entirely in offhand references to neural states, the Terran experts eventually picked up the ability to report their own neural states (without conscious inference) instead of reporting their thoughts, perceptions, and raw feels. (The physiologies of the two species were, fortunately, almost identical.) Everything went swimmingly, except for the difficulties met by the philosophers.

The philosophers who had come on the expedition were, as usual, divided into two warring camps: the tender-minded ones who thought that philosophy should aim at significance, and the tough-minded philosophers who thought that it should aim at Truth. The philosophers of the first sort felt that there was no real problem about whether the Antipodeans had minds. They held that what was important in understanding other beings was a grasp of their mode of being-in-the-world. It became evident that, whatever Existential the Antipodeans were using, they certainly did not include any of those which, a century earlier, Heidegger had criticized as "subjectivist". The whole notion of "the epistemological subject", or the person as spirit, had no place in their self-descriptions, nor in their philosophies. Some of the tender-minded philosophers felt that this showed the Antipodeans had not yet broken out of Nature into Spirit, or, more charitably, had not yet progressed from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness. These philosophers became town-criers of inwardness, attempting to bully the Antipodeans across an invisible line and into the Realm of the Spirit. Others, however, felt that the Antipodeans exhibited the praiseworthy grasp of the union of polemoj and logoj which was lost to Western Terran consciousness through Plato's assimilation of ousia and idea. The Antipodean failure to grasp the notion of mind, in the view of this set of philosophers, showed their closeness to Being and their freedom from the temptations to Which Terran thought had long since succumbed. In the contest between these two views, equally tender-minded as both were, discussion tended to be inconclusive. The Antipodeans themselves were not much help, because they had so much trouble translating the background reading necessary to appreciate the problem - Plato's Theaetetus, Descartes's Meditations, Hume's Treatise, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel's Phenomenology, Strawson's Individuals, etc.

The tough-minded philosophers, as usual, found a much more straightforward and clean-cut question to discuss. They did not care what the Antipodeans thought about themselves, but rather focused on the question: Do they in fact have minds? In their precise way, they narrowed this question down to: Do they in fact have sensations? It was thought that if it became clear whether they had, say, sensations of pain, as well as stimulated C-fibers, when touching hot stoves, everything else would be plain sailing. It was clear that the Antipodeans had the same behavioral disposition toward hot stoves, muscle cramps, torture and the like as humans. They loathed having their C-fibers stimulated. But the tough-minded philosophers asked themselves: Does their experience contain the same phenomenal properties as ours? Does the stimulation of C-fibers feel painful? Or does it feel some other, equally awful, way? Or does feeling not come into it at all? These philosophers were not surprised that the Antipodeans  could offer noninferential reports of their own neural states, since it had been learned long since that psychophysiologists could train human subjects to report alpha-rhythms, as well as various other physiologically describable cortical states. But they felt baffled by the question: Are some phenomenal properties being detected by an Antipodean who says, "It's my C-fibers again - you know, the ones that go off every time you get burned or hit or have a tooth pulled. It's just aweful."?

It was suggested that the question could only be answered experimentally, and so they arranged with the neurologists that one of their number should be wired up to an Antipodean volunteer so as to switch currents back and forth between various regions of the two brains. This, it was thought, would also enable the philosophers to insure that the Antipodeans did not have an inverted spectrum, or anything else which might confuse the issue. As it turned out, however, the experiment produced no interesting results. The difficulty was that when the Antipodean speech center got an input from the C-fibers of the Earthling brain it always talked only about it's C-fibers, whereas when the Earthling speech center was in control it always talked only about pain. When the Antipodean speech center was asked what the C-fibers felt like it said that it didn't quite get the notion of "feeling", but that the stimulated C-fibers were, of course, terrible things to have. The same sort of thing happened for the questions about inverted spectra and other perceptual qualities. When asked to call off the colors on a chart, both speech centers called off the usual color-names in the same order. But the Antipodean speech center could also call off the various neuronic bundles activated by each patch on the chart (no matter which visual cortex it happened to be hooked up to). When the Earthling speech center was asked what the colors were like when transmitted to the Antipodean visual cortex, it said that they seemed just as usual.

This experiment seemed not to have helped. For it was still obscure whether the Antipodeans had pains. It was equally obscure whether they had one or two raw feels when indigo light streamed onto their retinas (one of indigo, and one of neural state C-692) - or whether they had no raw feels at all. The Antipodeans were repeatedly questioned about how they knew it was indigo. They replied that they could see that it was. When asked how they knew they were in C-692, they said they "just knew" it. When it was suggested to them that they might have unconsciously inferred that it was indigo on the basis of the C-692 feel, they seemed unable to understand what unconscious inference was, or what "feels" were. When it was suggested to them that they might have made the same inference to the fact that they were in state C-692 on the basis of the raw feel of indigo, they were, of course, equally baffled. When they were asked whether the neural state appeared indigo, they replied that it did not - the light was indigo - and that the questioner must be making some sort of category mistake. When they were asked whether they could imagine having C-692 and not seeing indigo, they said they could not. When asked whether it was a conceptual truth or an empirical generalization that these two experiences went together, they replied that they were not sure how to tell the difference. When asked whether they could be wrong about whether they were seeing indigo, they replied that they of course could, but could not be wrong about whether they seemed to be seeing indigo. When asked whether they could be wrong about whether they were in state C-692, they replied in exactly the same way. Finally, skillful philosophical dialect brought them to realize that what they could not imagine was seeming to see indigo and failing to seem to be in state C-692. But this result did not seem to help with the questions: "Raw feels?" "Two raw feels or one?" "Two referents or one referent under two descriptions?" Nor did any of this help with the question about the way in which stimulated C-fibers appeared to them. When they were asked whether they could be mistaken in thinking that their C-fibers were stimulated, they replied that of course they could - but that they could not imagine being mistaken about whether their C-fibers seemed to be stimulated. 

At this point, it occurred to someone to ask whether they could detect the neural state which was the concomitant of "seeming to have their C-fibers stimulated". Antipodeans replied that there was, of course, the state of T-435 which was the constant neural concomitant of the utterance of the sentence "My C-fibers seem to be stimulated," state T-497 which went with "It's just as if my C-fibers were being stimulated," state T-293 which went with "Stimulated C-fibers!" and various other neural states which were concomitants of various other roughly synonymous sentences - but that there was no further neural state which they were aware of in addition to these. Cases in which Antipodeans had T-435 but no stimulation of C-fibers included those in which, for example, they were strapped to what they were falsely informed was a torture machine, a switch was theatrically turned on, but nothing else was done. 

Discussion among the philosophers now switched to the topic: Could the Antipodeans be mistaken about the T-series of neural states (the ones which were concomitants of understanding or uttering sentences)? Could they seem to be having T-435 but not really be? Yes, The Antipodeans said, cerebroscopes indicated that thing occasionally happened. Was there any explanation of the cases in which it happened - any pattern to them? No, there did not seem to be. It was just one of those odd things that turned up occasionally. Neurophysiology had not yet been able to find another sort of neural state, outside the T-series, which was a concomitant of such weird illusions, any more than for certain perceptual illusions, but perhaps it would some day. 

This answer left the philosophers still in difficulties on the question of whether the Antipodeans had sensations of pain, or anything else. For there now seemed to be nothing which the Antipodeans were incorrigible about except how things seemed to them. But it was not clear that "how things seemed to them" was a matter of what raw feels they had, as opposed to what they were inclined to say. If they had the raw feels of painfulness, then they had minds. But a raw feel is (or has) a phenomenal property - one which you cannot have the illusion of having (because, so to speak, having the illusion of it is itself to have it). The difference between stimulated C-fibers and pains was that you could have the illusion of stimulated C-fibers (could have, e.g., T-435) without having stimulated C-fibers, but could not have the illusion of pain without having pain. There was nothing which the Antipodeans could not be wrong about except how things seemed to them. But the fact that they could not "merely seem to have it seem to them that..." was of no interest in determining whether they had minds. The fact that "seems to seem..." is an expression without a use is a fact about the notion of "appearance", not a tip-off to the presence of "phenomenal properties". For the appearance-reality distinction is not based on a distinction between subjective representations and objective states of affairs; it is merely a matter of getting something wrong, having a false belief. So the Antipodeans' firm grasp of the former distinction did not help philosophers tell whether to ascribe the latter to them. 

A Slice of Cake and a Side of Representation

A quick thought before moving on:

Quoting Rorty again, "Contingency Irony and Solidarity" Pg. 5:
We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human Languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind - because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world ii our there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own - unaided by the describing activities of human beings - cannot.

The suggestion that truth, as well as the world, is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a langu4ge of his own. If we cease to attempt to make sense of the idea of such a nonhuman language, we shall not be tempted to confuse the platitude that the world may cause us to be justified in believing a sentence true with the claim that the world splits itself up, on its own initiative, into sentence-shaped chunks called "facts." But if one clings to the notion of self-subsistent facts, it is easy to start capitalizing the word "truth" and treating it as something identical either with God or with the world as God's project. Then one will say, for example, that Truth is great, and will prevail.

I’m starting to get the feeling that this is all Pragmatism really needed to do in order to satisfy its urges – just replace truth. Notice that statements like, “That car over there is silver.” whether you have a proclivity for truth being in the world, or truth being just a product of language, our propositions stay the same. For example the pragmatist doesn’t say, “wait, we shouldn’t say it like that, because that suggests that that’s actually true of the world.” But one doesn’t.

So why then does Pragmatism dump the idea of representation and the appearance/reality distinction? A representative statement for a Platonist (one who sees truth as existing in the world) is a truth about the world itself. However, representative statements about the world for a Pragmatist is a truth that exists only in language – following above. The only distinction that needs to be made between the two sorts of representation (if we keep it on both sides) is between the idea that one discovers truth (for the Platonist) and the idea that we create truth (for the Pragmatist). In another way, from a Pragmatist point of view the shift between different representative characters (i.e. the idea that a given metaphor represents a certain fundamental idea) isn’t to say that we’re saying something fundamental about the world in itself, but a suggestion to shift between certain ways of thinking about concepts because a different way has more “cash value” and/or allows us to obtain more predictive power - on the one hand anyway.

In this way it’s fair enough to say (for example) that people have fundamental affective states, and that things we say and do are reflections of those affective states. To make the argument that this sounds like Platonism would beg the question as to why one would not consider the belief that, “That car over there is red.” is also Platonism because both can rightly infer that one believes that truth to be true of the world in itself. All we need though, is the statement above from Rorty to make the proper distinction (or simply the idea that Truth transcends language, but I’ll get back to that later). In this way our talk about these affective states gains it’s cash value not in the truth it speaks about the world but in the cash value we gain from the predictive insights we may or may not gain from having that sort of dialogue.

In summary:
All we’re really saying is that it helps to think of people as having affective states (and whether they do or whether they don’t is not something one can prove), and it helps to speak and behave as though they do, even if it means implying that certain metaphors are representations of those states (refer back to my post “Hierarchies of Thought”). To say that that’s true (again, from a Pragmatic perspective) is not to actually say that that’s True of people.

Of course this all raises other interesting points in my mind that I’ll tare apart in a post to proceed.

Rorty Needs a Hug

From the album, "No One's First, and You're Next"

In the beginning of Richard Rorty’s “Contingency Irony and Solidarity”, Rorty sets about the task of defining his core purpose, which is, building the philosophical framework for his “Liberal Utopia” – although, note that “philosophical framework” isn’t really fare to say, but I leave it as said. Of course, you can’t have a Utopia without some people, so Rorty draws us a picture of the sort of human being that would inhabit this utopia – the sort of person that would naturally bring to light the type of environment Rorty would like to attain. This person he calls the “Liberal Ironist”. It’s important then, to note just what it means to be a Liberal Ironist in the first place. Here, Rorty borrows his definition of a liberal from Judith Shklar who said:

“Liberals are people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do.”

On the other side of that phrase, he uses “ironist” to:

“…name the sort of person who faces up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires – someone sufficiently historicist and nominalist to have abandoned the idea that those cenrtal beliefs and desires refer back to something beyond the reach of time and chance. Liberal ironists are people who include among these ungroundable desires their own hope that suffering will be diminished, that the humiliation of human beings by other human beings may cease.”

Let me suggest, following this definition, that in order to acknowledge this sort of disposition, one must first acknowledge that other human beings have the ability to feel and suffer in the same manner oneself does. To put it in another way, one acknowledges that other human beings have cognitive and affective states which are to a high degree the same as ones own. i.e. we have feelings of love, pain, grief, sorrow, etc. This doesn’t mean that it has some justifiable basis, or that we can have certain knowledge of it, only that we in some manner acknowledge or grant it upon reflection. Rorty offer’s no examples of possible justifications, he only says:

“For the liberal ironist, there is no answer to the question, “Why not be cruel?” no non-circular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible.”

Taking all of this together, I see Rorty as either being highly calculative for some dubious purpose, extremely shortsighted, or both. I see him as taking advantage of the fact that 99.99% of his readers will rightly grant that and say yes, you’re right, we should not be cruel, and move on from that proposition - now (again) granted he doesn't suggest that we don't use our own justifications, but he certainly doesn't supply us with any beyond the proposition. It sort of reminds me of SyeTen B’s proof of a moral absolute by asking the question, “Would child rape be ok under any circumstance?” Here Sye went to an extreme case where 99.99% of people would agree with him. Next, they would likely not recognize a condition where such a thing would be OK, and conclude right along with Sye that morals are absolute. However, Rorty’s aim is different then Sye’s, and quite frankly Rorty was a highly intelligent and important figure of the 20th century, and Sye is just some d-bag. Nevertheless, I do see Rorty as taking advantage of us here – he seems to intentionally avoid any idea that he might believe other people to have cognitive/affective states. I say he’s short sighted because he’s ignoring the fact that prior to accepting his proposition we’ve already been conditioned to accept it, but not as a mere proposition. The problem comes down to the manner with which we’re conditioned to accept it, and Rorty avoids contact with those conditions.

Let me here offer an anecdote. One of the great things about being a man in my position with my interests is that I have two absolutely wonderful specimens to experiment on (well, that’s probably not the right way to put it, but we’re working for effect here), namely, my 4 year old boy and 7 year old girl; soon to be 5 and 8. You see the boy, who’s thoroughly male, will for whatever reason (perhaps he’s not getting the desired effects he’d like, or perhaps he’s conducting some sort of bizarre experiment) take his “Little Tike’s” hammer and blast his sister upside the head with it. Of course this produces the assumed effect, and from the other room all I here is complete silence, followed by my crying daughter. Oddly enough the one who comes crying into the room is NOT my daughter, but my son; the crying is always completely contrived. Following shortly is my little girl, and I ask, “Alright, what happened?” The boy will say, “I hit Kylie….” “And why did you do that?” I’ll respond. Now, often times he’ll just say, “I don’t know.” But sometimes he’ll actually come up with what he thinks is some valid justification, nevertheless I’ll tell him, “You don’t hit your sister.” being as stern as possible without showing anger. I poop you not he used to say, but doesn’t anymore, “Why?” The first time he said that, and subsequent times for that matter, I actually laughed; I mean come on, WHY?

Now at this moment I could rightly say, “Because we’re not cruel to other people.” But that would go over with, “Why?” yes, indeed, great question. You see with kids this age the same treatment has the same desired effect, and that is, always answer with a question of your own – you know, take the Socratic rout on his ass. So I say, taking the Little Tike’s hammer from his hand, “How would you feel if I hit YOU in the head with this hammer….?” He whimpers, looks down (has the look of defeat all about him) and typically doesn’t respond (it’s worth noting that my daughter always answers this question). To my son I generally fill in and say, how do you think your sister feels? And he’ll respond, with a whimper, “Mm-hhm.” Then I’ll tell him to go give her a hug, and tell her you’re sorry. The point here is simple; it’s fair enough to tell me as a conditioned presumably mature adult that we don’t be cruel, but I’m in some seriously hot water if I’m going to think my 4 year old will blindly accept such a notion. If I rather proceed with the assumption that my son has cognitive/affective states, and behave in a manner that causes him to reflect upon his experience (by asking, “How would you feel if….?”), he always understands what it is I’m getting at and as a result, certain behaviors don’t need to be corrected through punishment or authority. i.e. his short time in reflection is enough to correct his behavior, well, at least in the short term. Give a boy plastic power tools and he’s going to destroy everything in his path – it’s the cancer of being born with testicles I suppose.

So again, the whole idea that cruelty is the worst thing we can do is a fine enough proposition to hold to – and understanding that there is no noncircular justification is good enough as well. Certainly I should grant that Rorty never asks us not to say that (for example) our kids have cognitive/affective states for the purposes of getting them to reflect, but (again) he certainly stays as far away from those suggestions as he can. I say he’s calculating because if he were to make such a functional assumption, we could paste on him the idea that either, A.) Language is then a representation of those cognitive/affective states, or B.) Language is a reflection of those cognitive states. But I see no reason why that belief has to be any less functional then his simple proposition that we not be cruel. Functional, in this case, is exactly what his suggestion looks like – function based on prior condition of course. But in Rorty’s case, his suggestion doesn’t come packed with an understanding of why, from the standpoint of (at least) personal reflection (granting its circularity), but is just thrown out there for a certain function that is to this point undefined. It doesn’t care or take into account how someone may feel, it only cares about the environment that might be created as the result of adhering to such a belief. In this way, I find it a bit blind and short sighted and I’d be quite curious, had Rorty had kids when he was alive (maybe he did) what he would have told them.

Continuing on, Rorty says the following about creating a Liberal Utopia:

” It [a liberal utopia] is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves by thinking, "They do not feel it as we would," or "There must always be suffering, so why not let them suffer?"”

Ahh, the sound of a scratching record in the morning – suppose I unpack. This seems like quite a careful piece of rhetoric that Rorty has crafted here as well. If solidarity is not “discovered by reflection” but created; is it perhaps “created by reflection”, or “created as the result of reflection”? How can it be created by increasing our sensitivity without some sort of reflection (I mean, aren’t we sensitive based on our own reflections)? Just what is Rorty skirting here? Again, he seems to be avoiding all prior conditioning on these matters, and taking advantage of the fact that his audience consists of adults who have prior assumptions. To paraphrase Rorty, He seems to be saying that we create solidarity by imagining that other people are fellow sufferers (i.e. suffer as we do), more specifically through that imagination we become aware of said suffering therefore our increased sensitivity to others needs and interests (as our own) reaches a point where it becomes difficult to marginalize them. But again, what he seems to have removed from the equation is the recognition of others suffering through reflection on ones own plight. In order to imagine that others suffer as you do one must reflect upon ones own suffering and ask, “how would you feel?” Sure enough solidarity is created, and not “discovered though reflection”, however one cannot pave the way for the creation of solidarity without first reflecting or imagining that people suffer as you do. From there I think it easily follows that solidarity is indeed created in the manner that Rorty would like to see it.

On the other hand, must we see that other people have cognitive/affective states, feelings and experiences as our own? To remove the idea that the recognition of suffering comes not from reflection, but from imagination, begs the question as to where this imagined idea comes from in the first place and why we should (or should have) imagine[d] it at all; although Rorty does in fact admit that there is no non-circular justification as to why one should not be cruel. Nevertheless, how could one ever hope to imagine such a thing if it was not first recognized in oneself?

On the one hand I do agree with the position that stays away from ideas like, “other people fall in love just as we do.”, all the while referring to the cognitive or affective condition of love – of course in this way we’re pulled into the appearance/reality distinction, and granting that behind our language is some sort of essence. Rorty simply stops at the statement, “we think that cruelty is the worst thing we can do.” without any further justification. Of course I agree with that, but my instincts (which I’d just assume do away with in this case) push towards the epistemological position which says “I know that that is true because I see it in myself.” Rorty may say, maybe that made sense (at some time and place), but try thinking about it this way. On the other hand (again), I could simply take the same functional position and state, “I believe that other people feel as I do, therefore I recognize that cruelty would the worst thing we can do.” I could then state that I have no non-circular justification for this claim and leave it at that. You could then still see may behavior, through language and action, etc. not as representation, but as certain habits of actions (in a specific case, between me and my boy)

I must say that I am somewhat resigned to the idea that we accept Rorty’s notion that cruelty is the worst thing that we can do, with no non-circular justification as to why that should be the case, but I’m suspicious of taking the statement on site. Between mature adults it’s fair enough to grant that we both pragmatically adhere to this belief, but you’re in a hopeless condition with your child if you think that sort of reasoning is going to fly. Simply teaching your child to grant such ideas is tantamount to ruthless church or state authority – granted though, I’m sure in Rorty’s case he wouldn’t rightly speak that way. Teaching your child to reflect upon their experiences is an important part of life.

To conclude, I don’t think it’s enough to simply say, “cruelty is the worst thing we can do”, as it short sights the conditions under which we may have accepted such a notion. Namely, it short circuits the idea that as people, we come to reflect on our own experiences, and grant (in a question begging way) that other people have cognitive and affective states. In believing this, we can still follow Rorty’s suggestion that beliefs are habits of action, and see our behavior (language and action) as manifest of this. I also think we can rightly hold to that thought without the muddy waters of certainty, Platonic distinctions etc.. We can easily state that as a result of that belief, it gives us tools to communicate in ways that affect others behaviors in a positive way, going beyond the mere suggestion of a proposition and avoiding any authoritative tone.

Let me jump ahead:
At Pragmatism and Atheistic Hope I found myself butting heads against Matt over the regurgitated mysticism of Joseph Campbell, specifically the idea that Truth (capitol “T”) transcends language. I’m almost embarrassed at this point to direct ones attention to the thread, but it can be found HERE. My initial contention was against the idea that the pragmatist should part ways with Campbell because the idea that Truth transcends language has implicit within it (or in the least can be philosophically turned into) the appearance/reality distinction – in other words this statement isn’t to suggest that standing behind language is some great Truth to be accessed. I had simply said, one shouldn’t in this case turn the metaphor into a metaphysic – which is a suggestion given by Campbell (quoted here) and made popular to my mind by Sam Norton. Specifically I stated:

“I don't think it would be right to consider Campbell a realist in this way, or to interprit him as wanting to access a fundamental underlying reality behind language per se. He quite agrees with the statement that one should not mistake the finger for the moon - which I believe is a call to not mistake the finger as representing. i.e. to take the finger for the moon, is to consider that the finger represents the moon. Or to put it another way, Campbell (as an idealist) would see words as tools, just as the pragmatist.”

But, Matt would counter:

“Because in regards to Andrew's defense of Campbell as no metaphysician, I have to grant that Campbell was not a philosopher, and therefore had no metaphysics to offer (not quoted above was a statement from me that indeed Campbell was NO philosopher, which is one reason we shouldn’t read him that way). However--that's not the question. As Andrew emphasizes, Campbell is all about metaphor and the question of his metaphors should be our very legitimate question. And in that case, I have to side with Leela that some of Campbell's metaphors are misleading. Suggesting metaphors that you can easily build a metaphysics off of (e.g., metaphors that lend themselves to the appearance/reality distinction) has to be pointed out as bad, whatever the intention of the producer. Campbell can cry foul all he wants, our only job is to wish he'd been a better poet.”

It should be noted that this really made me more frustrated then it caused me sit back and think – shame on me. Ideally I’d simply like to respond to this by saying; that it is misleading because it implies a Platonic distinction is going against the very idea of not taking the metaphor for a metaphysic. But the conversation didn’t really go that rout, and one can feel free to delight in the horror for oneself as I’m not going to quote any further.

The bottom line was, I wanted to keep my statement about Truth transcending language as a useful metaphor that; if understood correctly not only leads to the conclusion that what one finds is nothing, and that it’s just that “cognitive” realization that’s found (special note of the quotes). i.e. “when you’re done cutting wood, put down the saw and pick up the hammer.” Zen is life, and language is just one part of life, just one tool we use while traveling along its path. In this way, the statement that Truth transcends language couldn’t be more anti-Platonic when seen in the light of this personal realization…. But now I’ve just caught myself in a snare or two. On the one hand (using Rorty) I may be implying that language is expansionist (which is to say Romantic), i.e. that language as metaphor is “strange, mystic, wonderful” etc.. I could be seen as in effect saying that language has the capacity to “express a hidden reality that exists within us.” But that is not what I’m doing, exactly.

It’s important then, to draw out a few points relative to the metaphor/literal distinction made by Rorty:

“we need to see the distinction between the literal and the metaphorical in the way Davidson sees it: not as a distinction between two sorts of meaning, nor as a distinction between two sorts of interpretation, but as a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar uses of noises and marks. The literal uses of noises and marks are the uses we can handle by our old theories about what people will say under various conditions. Their metaphorical use is the sort which makes us get busy developing a new theory.”

“Davidson puts this point by saying that one should not think of metaphorical expressions as having meanings distinct from their literal ones. To have a meaning is to have a place in a language game. Metaphors, by definition, do not. Davidson denies, in his words, "the thesis that associated with a metaphor is a cognitive content that its author wishes to convey and that the interpreter must grasp if he is to get the message. In his view, tossing a metaphor into a conversation is like suddenly breaking off the conversation long enough to make a face, or pulling a photograph out of your pocket and displaying it, or pointing at a feature of the surroundings, or slapping your interlocutor's face, or kissing him. Tossing a metaphor into a text is like using italics, or illustrations, or odd punctuation or formats. All these are ways of producing effects on your interlocutor or your reader, but not ways of conveying a message. To none of these is it appropriate to respond with "What exactly are you trying to say?"

(CIS, Pg. 17 & 18)

First and foremost, I do in fact agree with this position on metaphor. What is key for me is the statement from Davidson that a metaphor does not have associated with it a cognitive content that an interpreter must grasp in order to get the message. After all, if we grant a metaphor such a reality, then we’re granting that behind language is some underlying essence and we’re right back to Platonic distinctions.

Rorty puts it best on page 19:

“The Platonist and the positivist share a reductionist view of metaphor: They think metaphors are either paraphrasable or useless for the one serious purpose which language has, namely, representing reality. By contrast, the Romantic has an expansionist view: He thinks metaphor is strange, mystic, wonderful. Romantics attribute metaphor to a mysterious faculty called the "imagination," a faculty they suppose to be at the very center of the self, the deep heart's core. Whereas the metaphorical looks irrelevant to Platonists and positivists, the literal looks irrelevant to Romantics. For the former think that the point of language is to represent a hidden reality which lies outside us, and the latter thinks its purpose is to express a hidden reality which lies within us.”

Of course, I do find it a bit peculiar that Rorty nails the Romantic for the use of the mysterious faculty called imagination, when above he says, “It [a liberal utopia] is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers.” I digress…

That it is important to note that we should not see metaphor as having a cognitive content, does not mean that we cannot see it as having a cognitive effect (much like the cognitive effect it may have had on ourselves), like a slap on the face, or kiss on the cheek, so on. That we can at once say that, “Truth transcends language”, and to understand that in this instance that we should not turn this metaphor into a metaphysic, i.e. as Davidson states, “To none of these [this] is it appropriate to respond with "What exactly are you trying to say?" is to offer onto someone a moment of reflection, a moment for realization, a point of distance between themselves and what it is they aimed to grasp, a chance to put down the saw and pick up the hammer.

That Rorty accepts what Davidson is saying in the manner that he does, gives further force to the idea that he skirts recognition or use of the cognitive/affective. Which doesn’t mean that behind his insistence that we imagine people are fellow sufferers is his own personal reflection (held in recognized circularity) – but he certainly doesn’t seem to want to say it. To say with Rorty that beliefs are not representations, but rather habits of action; and to say that words are not representations, but tools, fits well with the idea that we believe cruelty is a bad thing (as seen by our actions), and well enough with the idea that we believe other people to be cognitive affectional creatures as we see ourselves – at the moment I’m not entirely certain that you can even separate the two. Seeing that the later is true doesn’t have to imply that we think our words are reflections or representations of our belief. Further, if we accept the later as a pragmatic stance, we can still see the light in the language of the mystics – we can see it’s use not as some reflection of our inner self of representation of something to be found, but as (perhaps) a suggestion to reflect upon ourselves, a moment to be alone – after a slap in the face, you may like a moment to savor the pain.

For the sake of summary and rephrase:
my main contention is simply; whereas I have no issue with Rorty’s suggestion that we take cruelty as the worst thing we can do, and that there is in fact no non-circular justification for that, I find it curious and to a certain degree dubious that he refrains from at least offering some suggestions. His attempt to steer clear of these suggestions (and in particular the idea of reflection) looks like an attempt to stay away from Platonism and Romanticism, but in turn makes him appear myopic and suspicious. I’d like to continue this in another post, and consider just what are the consequences (from a pragmatic stance) of believing the proposition “that other people have cognitive/affective states”. In what way can we consider this notion, all the while staying clear of Platonic and Romantic distinctions? In my post, “The Two Horns of Realism and Non-Realism”, I grappled with the idea that statements like, “I’m feeling spiritual”, or, “God gives me the feeling of…”, or, “I have a sense of the mystical” simply don’t make any sense from the Non-Realist perspective as they have no behavioral content save the stating of the metaphor itself. There as well, the statement implies the idea that what’s happening is a reflection of ones cognitive or affective state, i.e. that those states stand as an essence behind the metaphor – but such privileged access claims are hopelessly meaningless to me and others who are more interested in what that means in terms of ones behavior. At the end of that post I concluded:

“Does the non-realist position ignore the mystical component?” or is it that the mystical component is merely irrelevant? In other words calling ourselves mystics (and having mystical experiences) infers certain behaviors… Short of deeds and habits of action, saying that one has great faith, belief, and mystical connections is completely meaningless to anybody and everybody but oneself – as a result one should only consider it relative to deeds. What else do we have?
To suggest that there is something more to the mystical beyond a habit of action is almost to suggest that the morally upright atheist who donates money and volunteers his time is somehow feeling different then the faith based Christian who does the same…”

Short of personal statements about ones state of affairs, this still doesn’t cover the ground of mystical statements like, “Truth transcends language”. Does this imply a cognitive “getting it”, i.e. a content that must be grasped; a content which stands beyond language in some Platonic realm? Or can we say that it’s merely meant to produce an effect – an effect that is perhaps no different then asking my boy, “How would you feel if...”? Neither of these statements requires an answer either. As an effect, in time through thought and reflection, will bring one into adulthood and into a condition where questions like, “What is the Truth”, “What is the meaning of life” will no longer make sense and thus ceased to be asked. And reflections as in, “God gives me strength”, will be seen as merely conditions of that former recognition, and be coupled with behaviors that reflect those conditions – as in the absence of any ultimate questioning. Of course, that begs further questions that I’d like to explore further.

---------

Can we functionally propose that people have cognitive states, without the implication that language represents or reflects those cognitive states? This is mighty sticky, and I see why Rorty avoids it. Not to mention, I’m wading through the waters of my old dilemma.


I’ll leave this hanging here for the moment, and pick it up in another post.

The Future of Religion

Scott Roberts mentioned this book on Stephen Law's blog the other day, so I picked it up and give it a read this morning.

I loved it - and will have to absord it and make some comments at some point.

Postmodern Rejection of Absolutism

This was certainly a left-fielder, but was worth the read (if only for a good laugh) - I'll update with my own comments later.

..

(link)

Richard Rorty and the Postmodern Rejection of Absolute Truth

Hierarchies of Thought

This is P.6 of "The Two Horns of Reaism and Non-realism"

I'd like to preface this with an exerpt from Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (I'll ultimately go another way):

Precision instruments are designed to achieve an idea, dimensional precision, whose perfection is impossible. There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational in every way. It's the understanding of this rational intellectual idea that's fundamental. John looks at the motorcycle and he sees steel in various shapes and has negative feelings about these steel shapes and turns off the whole thing. I look at the shapes of the steel now and I see ideas. He thinks I'm working on parts. I 'm working on concepts.

I was talking about these concepts yesterday when I said that a motorcycle can be divided according to its components and according to its functions. When I said that suddenly I created a set of boxes with the following arrangement:

And when I said the components may be subdivided into a power assembly and a running assembly, suddenly appear some more little boxes:

And you see that every time I made a further division, up came more boxes based on these divisions until I had a huge pyramid of boxes. Finally you see that while I was splitting the cycle up into finer and finer pieces, I was also building a structure.

This structure of concepts is formally called a hierarchy and since ancient times has been a basic structure for all Western knowledge. Kingdoms, empires, churches, armies have all been structured into hierarchies. Modern businesses are so structured. Tables of contents of reference material are so structured, mechanical assemblies, computer software, all scientific and technical knowledge is so structured...so much so that in some fields such as biology, the hierarchy of kingdom- phylum-class-order-family-genus-species is almost an icon.

The box "motorcycle" contains the boxes "components" and "functions." The box "components" contains the boxes "power assembly" and "running assembly," and so on. There are many other kinds of structures produced by other operators such as "causes" which produce long chain structures of the form, "A causes B which causes C which causes D," and so on. A functional description of the motorcycle uses this structure. The operator's "exists," "equals," and "implies" produce still other structures. These structures are normally interrelated in patterns and paths so complex and so enormous no one person can understand more than a small part of them in his lifetime. The overall name of these interrelated structures, the genus of which the hierarchy of containment and structure of causation are just species, is system. The motorcycle is a system. A real system.

To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as "the system" is to speak correctly, since these organizations are founded upon the same structural conceptual relationships as a motorcycle. They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There's no villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.

But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind -- number three tappet is right on too. One more to go. This had better be it -- .I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this...that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes...pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts...all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind! -- Ghosts.

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While thinking about my conundrum of representation - at least insofar as communicating it in such a way that finds some agreement - the above passage from Pirsig came to mind. The key notion to consider in dissolving the idea of philosophical representation and/or realism with respect to what Pirsig has said, is the whole idea that what we consider phenomenon, or the objective world is mostly a mental process. In other words what we see when we observe things and what we make of them stands in relation to a hierarchy or paradigm of thought in such a way that to speak of representation – whereas it may make a certain amount of sense within a given hierarchy - it falls apart outside of it, and is circular within it. Not to mention our adaptation of idea is more closely related to functionality then with accurate representation.

What I’d like to do first is recognize, as Pirsig did above, that things like government, motorcycles, map making, religion, physics, so on, are nothing more then systems of rational thought which can be seen as existing within a hierarchy. In other words, individual propositions in a language don’t stand independently in relation to the things they refer to, but rather stand within in a larger context where their truth value is relative to their logical consistency within the hierarchy. That the socialist concept of distributing the wealth is wrong or bad, is really recognition that within the hierarchy of Democratic thinking there is no such concept – which is why when one infers such a state of affairs, we all cry “SOCIALISM”, and not simply, “That sounds really shitty!”. It’s not that socialism is necessarily false, wrong or bad per se, it simply doesn’t fit into the context of our belief/value system – you could see this as a bit of dogmatic thinking, but I’ll get to that later.

That a motorcycle exhaust pipe is exactly that - and not just in statement but as represented on an engineering print – is true relative to the hierarchy of thought about motorcycles. Outside of that, or the hierarchy being unknown, there’s no telling what the piece could be and/or what it could be interpreted as. Perhaps an Australian shaman from the bush stumbles upon it and immediately proclaims it’s a religious symbol of some sort, whereupon all the people of his village bow down once a day to worship it. That sounds pretty wacky to be sure, and no doubt we’d say they were wrong about the odd piece of metal, but that’s simply because the system of thought we’re using to talk about the part is different from theirs. One might make the argument, well, it wasn’t intended to be a religious symbol from its inception and therefore on those grounds the shaman is completely cracked – he’s applying a system of thought to the part that doesn’t belong to it. But who’s to say that our current conception or system of thought about trees is the right one? The point is we’re interpreting an object relative the hierarchy of thought we’re working in, and relative to the use we find for a given object/concept.

In the case of map-making we again have a system of rational thought at work. On the one hand representation is a slick piece of rhetoric to apply to the map relative to what it’s doing – representing the terrain – however we miss the fact that what the terrain is exists within its own mental hierarchy. In this way (philosophically) we simply see the map representing (if anything at all) another hierarchy of thought. It represents, in the form of marks, scribbles, alphanumerics, etc., our very human rational thought process as it goes to work on it’s own needs and interests; it’s a concept worked out in paper, or to put it another way, it’s just more language. Again, as stated above, the map only makes sense within the context of rational thought it was conceived in; give it to the shaman above, and he might tack it up right next to his exhaust pipe and say it’s a picture of the God-head himself – on what grounds do we say he is incorrect. Once again, the idea of representation itself is nothing more then a concept which exists within a larger framework and who’s truth makes sense only within that context. Since the map is really just more language, the realist is stuck with the same problem of showing how language represents anything. Of course one could make the same argument about me, but as a pragmatist I defend my positions, well, pragmatically; if you don’t like them, or find no use for them, neither of us are any worse for ware.

Moving on, one of the road blocks that stand in the way of any two different understandings is generally one of dogma, or so I’ll argue. That a given thing is an exhaust pipe and nothing more, or that the part is a religious icon and nothing more (in statement or belief), is nothing more then a statement of dogmatic thinking. It’s an insistence that our language, along with our needs and interests surrounding the part, correlate; or more extremely (as we’re talking dogma here) that we represent reality as it is, properly. “It’s an exhaust pipe you religious wack-job!” Essentially what you end up with here is one hierarchy/system of thought claiming relevance over another hierarchy/system of thought and in some cases conflating purposes. On the one hand the westerner could assemble the part onto an actual motorcycle and demonstrate it’s use relative to his hierarchy, but on the other hand the shaman could do just the same – so long as both sides are unwilling to step out of they’re dogmatic little hierarchies, no real conclusion on the matter may be reached.

This leads me to another dogma of realism, which is the notion that scientific inquiry makes progress by finding out more and more about the same objects. But once again, this assumes (in true realist form) that we are building upon a system of thought which exists in the form of one big pyramid, as apposed to several competing pyramids, furthermore that the purposes these structures of thought serve are the same. Going back to the exhaust pipe, it’s easy to see from the outside looking in that their difference in opinion exists mainly in the purpose the object serves. Relative to this view point we cannot here make the claim that either side is incorrect, more right or more wrong; we can only say that this side or that sides purpose is meaningless to us.

In the same way we can move to an example given earlier, about where Aristotle’s ideas of motion stand relative to Newton’s. We may be tempted to consider the following statements, “Aristotle said mostly false things about motion”, or “Aristotle said mostly true things about what HE called motion, but we don’t believe there is any such thing.” Or we might want to say, “Here Aristotle goofed, even in his own terms.” Or, “here we have a statement which would be true if anything in Aristotelian physics were, but which, alas, refers to something which does not exist and thus is false.” What we’re trying to accomplish here is to distinguish between Aristotelian falsehoods which are the result of the nonexistence of what he was talking about, and those which result from his misuse of his own theoretical apparatus. However in both cases we’re making a judgment of a particular system of thought relative to the dogma of another system of thought – on the one hand, assuming we’re talking about the same things, he completely misconstrued and/or misrepresented the nature of motion. On the other hand, he was talking about ghosts and fairies that we can’t seem connect with any phenomenon by today’s standards. In both cases we neglect whatever practical purpose his dialogue about motion served at the time and instead substitute it with the practical purposes we have today – thus it is by those standards we make a call. Our current hierarchy of thought isn’t “more true”, it’s simply better suited to our current needs and interests. This is exactly the case between the westerner with the exhaust pipe, and the shaman with the religious icon – each is conceiving of a given thing within a different hierarchy of thought to serve a different need. There is no way of talking about their object that is more true then any other; it’s not more true to call it “A” instead of “B”, nor is it more true that it serves purpose “A” as apposed to purpose “B”. In the same way it isn’t more true to call motion “Aristotelian” as apposed to “Newtonian” (or visa versa), nor is it more true that motion serves an “Aristotelian” purpose as apposed to “Newtonian” purpose. Once again, it would be my argument that a shift in position is a shift in systems of thought relative to the purposes those shifts give us, not their “truthy-ness”.

Representation then, can only take place dogmatically (rhetorically) within a given hierarchy of thought. In other words if two speakers are agreeing to converse within a given context, they can make claims and/or arguments about correct representation only within that context. So you can say, relative to systemic world view “X”, it would be inaccurate to represent reality as containing a God as nowhere within the hierarchy is the logic, reason, or rational to deal with the concept. This of course doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist anymore then the exhaust pipe may or may not be an exhaust pipe or religious icon for the same reasons. The key point here is, that any idea, whether contained in what we’d call object or in dialogue, makes sense only within the context of the language it takes place within – the same is true for the idea of representation. If one would like to use it, fine, but as we cannot justify it outside of pragmatic grounds, then happy chit-chats to you.

The final matter I’d like to address is the idea of constraint, or being constrained by reality in such a way that this gives us a legitimate claim to realism. Since it’s obvious we bump into a world that seems to hold us back from doing certain things, it follows that there must be a world in itself that we have the capacity to represent. I’m not going to fully tackle this here, but say for the moment that, in much the same way the Buddhists say, “Desire is the cause of all suffering”, and Nirvana is the escape from this suffering, I will say, “Rational thought is the cause of all constraint”. It constrains us in governmental systems, religious systems, subject/object metaphysical systems, and in philosophical systems in general. Whatever our current forms of thought are that we hold dear to within any of those systems are the vary things that constrain us, they are the dogma of our lives. As Pirsig notes, through revolts within governments, scientific revolutions, or shifts in religious perspectives, we never get to the point of releasing ourselves from the real culprit of constraint and suffering, which is systematic reason itself. Our lives through these revolutions seem to have some short term gains, but we quickly fall into the same sorts of depressions that led us into the revolutions in the first place.

I’d like to paraphrase Nietzsche with the following:“When a thing becomes known to us, it ceases to be of a concern.” (he goes on to say from here, “…so what was on the mind of God when he said, ‘know thyself’,”) In other words it (the thing) becomes dogmatic, ordinary, meaningless, and so on. It becomes something that doesn’t quite get at the core of what it was we were trying to say, and as a result we build new systems of thought to deal with that new sense of emptiness we feel; which are interpreted as our new needs and interests.

Quoting Pirsig in ZMM again he states:
“When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts. Mark Twain's experience comes to mind, in which, after he had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts...something is always created too. And instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see the process as a kind of death-birth continuity that is neither good nor bad, but just is.”

P.4 The Two Horns of Realism and Non-realism

Of course “in front of me right now is a computer monitor”; which of course I’m eyeing to a greater degree as I type…

However, outside of a certain behavior which includes making marks and noises, this statement really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In the same way, outside of a system of communication which includes speaking, marking, making symbols, systems of arithmetic, logic, etc. a map makes no sense at all either.

As the example goes, the map is a representation of the terrain; it corresponds to certain objective/material aspects of it – dark lines with perpendicular hashes are railroads, blue squiggly lines are streams and rivers, while blue patches are lakes – green patches are parks and forested areas, with broad circles and numbers representing altitudes – then there’s those little blue boxes with the tent, those are camping areas, or perhaps a wayside rest, with little black lines paving they’re way adjacent to them, through the cities and past my house… This, it’s supposed to be believed, represents the land.

Direct intuition seems to suggest quite clearly that such is the case, to the point that no-one outright would have a problem accepting it – however I find it highly problematic. Certainly before a squiggly line can be conceived of as representing a river, it has to be understood the enormous amount of contingencies that lead to that particular symbol being coherent in the first place. Looking at it just by itself we say, “this line stands for the river.” Is it the representative character of that statement that allows me understand what you’re saying, or is it rather your behavior as a whole that allows me to understand it? In another way, to say that words and marks represent and correspond is to suggest (or so I take it as suggesting) that outside of human contingencies these words and marks still hold a certain truth in and of themselves – it’s the old, “the universe speaks a certain language” bit. Which is for me to suggest that languages are not elements of human behavior, but elements of the way things are in themselves – and this seems to lead somewhat dubiously to the thought that speaking (in the form of representing) is really a third person enterprise with my hands firmly grasping the controls of a mysterious chimera inside the skull of meat puppet.

As elements of the way things are in themselves it suggests to me that, outside of human needs and interests there are still “blue squiggly lines and green patches”, but then I’m confused because, where are those blue squiggly lines and green patches? In other words, maps (if I can loosely use “represent” without being attacked) are at best representations of human behavior, not land masses. They represent certain contingencies which are always relative to ourselves.

I can’t escape the idea that behind any realist worldview is the idea of some sort of absolute – which either exists in a certain sort of commensurate lingo, or an all powerful all knowing God. How can you be certain that you’ve represented reality? In what way is the manner of my speak incorrect? You see, the only way to validate a strict realist, representative circular worldview is [again] to appeal to a ghost in the machine (a third person perspective), which ultimately validates the claim. A view of language (on the other hand) which is more tool-like and behavioral, has no requirement for ultimate justification or circular reasoning as what I’m saying has no ultimate relation to things in themselves, but only relates (once again) to behavior.

One of the reasons why I bring up democracy over and over (to which I haven’t received a response on the matter), is if language represents the terrain, then what is the terrain of Democracy? Where do we see Democracy? Where do we bump into it and how is this bumping into any different from bumping into the so-called terrain? This is why I infer that the answer is naturally, that “Democracy is merely a creation of the human spirit.” But if that’s the case, what’s it representative of (what’s spirit, or whatever word one would insert here)? Is Democracy real? Is it a fairy? The realist perspective fails to account for such phenomenon’s – of which we could include religion, love, goodness, and countless other human institutions. However, looked at from a behavioral point of view, the line between the terrain and human institution is blurred to a point that it makes no sense to conceive of such distinctions; that anything and everything from rocks to God, to love, to physics, are nothing more then human conventions based on certain contingencies that arose in our effort to thrive, survive, be happy and procreate.

I’m thinking to myself that this sounds like a sort of reductionism of God and religion, however I must remind myself that at this point in the string of this talk on Realism vs Non-realism, I’ve merely been talking about God as it pertains to a behavioral perspective… I think after this post I’d like to move on and get back to some thoughts I’ve been having on Rorty and Buddhism – as Buddhism is my secret love, and this whole liberal ironist thing is really eatin’ a hole through me…..

P.S.
Psiomniac, I’m not really sure where to go… And I’m really bothered by the fact that maybe I’m severely misunderstanding your point of view – it could be because I’m too much of a novice, or that I’m being too forceful with my own thoughts, I’m not sure. Perhaps you could draft a post on your blog that elucidates your major points??? Cuz I can be a little slow and stuff.

P.3 The Two Horns of Realism and Non-realism

Ok, so where was I...
From P.2 (HERE), Psiomniac's comment. My statments are in Green, Psiomniac in Blue, my response in Black

"It's my belief that in this instance the theist needs to offer up a reason why one should believe such a thing in the absence of proof."
"It is my assessment so far that the reasons we have for thinking we interact in dependable ways with a mind-independent reality, are an order of magnitude stronger than any reasons you have offered so far for belief in a specific god."

Since it’s clear that I’m not talking about interacting with a God who’s existence is mind-independent, and since (as of yet) no noncircular reason has been given as to why we should accept that mind-independent entities exist, then I’m not all together certain what burden I’m sacked with in this instance? If we both agree that such an argument doesn’t exist, than no real reason beyond my pragmatic (non-realist) account need be offered for my appeal to God.

"I think we’d both agree following your first paragraph that it would merely be an assumption."
"I wouldn't agree with 'merely'. Rather, I'd say that any functional world view must have a set of foundational assumptions. What differs is what they are and the basis upon which they are held."

Sure, Psiomniac, however I can make the same foundational assumption under my worldview and assert, “God exists”, but as it stands it’s no more or less provable from the realist perspective then your representationalism. What are your foundational assumptions I wonder?

"If one cannot show the truth of represenation, then why should I beleive it?"
"For the same reason that you should believe that you have a head, namely because it is sensible to do so."

Believing that one has a head has nothing necessarily to do with adhering to representationalism or correspondence theory – in other words, I can assert that belief (make the statement) without the philosophical point of view. Or to put it in yet another way, It’s sensible to have the statement in a language game “I have a head”, for reasons outside of philosophy; it directs our attention, speaks to our behavior, makes sense in a given language game, but doesn’t say anything about mind-independent entities per se. Since we don’t sprinkle in theories of truth within our everyday conversations, it’s clear that sensible in this case refers only to philosophical discourse – nothing more.

The way I talk about God, on the other hand, is not so much philosophical as it is just part of the way I (and the community of believers I’m part of) talk. It’s not about philosophy, it’s not about foundational theories of truth, its about understanding one another through a particular sort of dialogue – which is to say nothing at this point about a personal sense of mysticism.

P.2 The Two Horns of Realism and Non-realism

I’d like to start this where Psiomniac left off in the last comment string where he stated:

“But as we already agreed, you cannot show representation outside of a circular argument. I think we agreed that there can be no non circular argument that justifies our appeal to things like reason or to the existence of things outside our minds. That is to say that the foundationalist quest for a bullet proof argument to show we are justified is doomed.”

To this I believe we both agree…

“But it doesn't follow that there are no reasons at all to suppose that we represent aspects of the phenomenal world. You want to argue perhaps that it is impossible to occupy a position from which we can directly assess a correspondence between what we say and how things are; trying to attain such a transcendental vantage point would be like trying to step outside our own skin.”

Let me build an example from this; lets suppose that I’m a realist and I proclaim that God exists. Naturally the atheist demands proof of which so far in the history of mankind no such thing exists – as such the theist pre-supposes God’s existence. However, is there any reason at all to suppose God doesn’t exist? Does the world assume a creator in much the same way a word assumes a representation? It's my belief that in this instance the theist needs to offer up a reason why one should believe such a thing in the absence of proof.

This is likewise the case for the representationalist; if you want to assume that words are representational and you agree that one cannot prove such a thing, then why should I believe it? I think we’d both agree following your first paragraph that it would merely be an assumption.

“The plausibility of this idea, and perhaps the notion that if there are 'objects' in the world that exist independently of our representations of them, then there is no way in which our representations could intelligibly thought to be 'like' the objects, since the only notions of representation as such that are available to us, are in terms of our concepts and sense experience, rather than the objects themselves. This is taken to introduce the limitation that since we can't know objects in-themselves, we cannot talk meaningfully about them. Thus the notion of representation is a non starter, or so the argument goes.
Is that interpretation close?”

No, not a correct interpretation:
This seems to me to be a statement made from the empiricist’s tool kit that I would simply reject outright. It seems to say, “We can’t know objects because all we can know is sense experience”; and of course we can reduce this to, “We can’t know sense experience because all we can know is cognitive states”, and so on and so on as science opens up new avenues of description we have a reduction ad absurdum.

If one cannot show the truth of represenation, then why should I beleive it?

"Metaphorical" vs. "Final" Language

I’d like to make a quick point here for the validity of religious language by appealing to a distinction Rorty makes about language, then in short pointing out where and why I feel he goes wrong.

In Rorty’s book, “Contingency, Irony and Solidarity”, he distinguishes (not directly) between two types of vocabularies or languages; First, what he calls a “Final Vocabulary” he defines as follows:

“All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest sefl-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person’s “Final Vocabulary”.

It is “final” in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, the user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to force. A small part of a final vocabulary is made up of thin, flexible, and ubiquitous terms such as, “true”, “good”, “right”, and “beautiful”. The larger part contains thicker, more rigid, and more parochial terms, for example, “Christ”, “England”, “Professional Standards”, “decency”, “kindness”, “the revolution”, “the Church”, “Progressive”, “rigorous”, “creative”. The more parochial terms do most of the work.”

On the other hand, Rorty defines Metaphorical Language as follows:

Although first, it should be understood the claim Rorty makes in my post just below, “Systemic Truth / Rorty”.

Rorty points out Nietzsche’s definition of “truth” as “a mobile army of metaphors”…
"...but in order to accept this picture, we need to see the distinction between the literal and the metaphorical in the way Davidson see’s it; not as a distinction between two sorts of meaning, nor as a distinction between two sorts of interpretation, but as a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar uses of noises and marks. The literal uses of noises and marks are the uses we can handle by our old theories about what people will say under various conditions. Their metaphorical use is the sort which makes us get busy developing a new theory… One should not think of metaphorical expression as having meaning distinct from their literal ones. To have meaning is to have a language game. Metaphors, by definition, do not…"

The issue I have here is simple, and of course (again) centers around my defense of religious language; Rorty would quickly reduce the whole enterprise of Christianity to a “Final Vocabulary”, and thus as such is bound to be justified only by reference to circular argumentation. Whereas in a general sense, Christians certainly do tend to hold to a static/final vocabulary relative to they’re beliefs, it does not stand (while looking at Christianity from a historical perspective) that it is not at the same time “a mobile army of metaphors”. Only when one takes the view that our current belief is not metaphoric can we reduce it to notions such as final vocabulary; I would suspect that the intellectual theologian, as well as myself, don’t have such static patterns of thought with regard to God, or Christianity. There may be certain principles that underlie Christian thinking, however the way in which we define those things, the way we talk about them, is certainly metaphorical (or so I'd suggest). Furthermore, the way we bring into the fray of our beliefs that which wasn’t there before constantly changes along side the evolution of our metaphors.

To put it another way, Rorty would reject Christianity not just on the grounds of being a so called final vocabulary, but as it implies an ultimate Truth or a means of getting in touch with a reality that exists “out there”. i.e. it is a means of certainty (the two are really the same). Rorty’s view of science (for example) is one that merely suggests, we’re not discovering truths which lead us closer and closer to the nature of the way the world is in itself, but merely developing new languages, through the formation of new metaphors, that are better suited to an ever changing world. However, this would be the same argument that I would employ for what religious language does.

So it seems to me a bit short sighted of Rorty to reduce Christian thinking in such a manner; although at the bottom I understand that his suggestion would be that God is akin to the sort of thinking which says there is a truth outside ourselves to be know, and thus rejects it also on those grounds. However I’ll come back with his same language and simply state that that is mere metaphor as well, that there is no reason that Christianity, in that sense, cannot fit into the framework of a neo-pragmatist world view…

There is no necessary need (as Christians), while in the process of redefining and changing our metaphores, to loose sight of where we began, in this case with Christ. And there is likewise no necessary need to continue to view God as some ultimate outside reality, or some fire burning within us, as neither of these views will change the principle target that Chritianity would aim for, e.g. freedom, love, so on. In this way, I'll let Rorty have his stance of Christian dogma and God as a means of certainty as something we can do better without (I completely agree), but again, there's no reason we need to ditch Christianity in the process of adopting a more pragmatic worldview.

---
(on a side note)
Rorty goes on to describe the “Ironist”, the sort of person that should replace the metaphysician (and once again, I find myself in agreement), he says:

The Ironist is someone who fulfills three conditions: 1.) he has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary he currently uses, because he has been impressed with other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books he has encountered; 2.) he realized that argument phrased in his current vocabulary can neither underwrite not dissolve these doubts; 3.) Insofar as he philosophizes about his situation, he does not think that his vocabulary is closer to reality then others, that it is in touch with a power not himself. Ironists who are inclined to philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to fight one’s way past appearance to the real, but simply by playing the new off against the old…”

The obvious question that comes to mind for me then, is how a Christian cannot at the same time be an ironist after Rorty? Is it not in the Christians best interest to be skeptical? To continually take new views of his beliefs in light of others? To redefine his/her metaphors; in affect assimilate ideas such as, acceptance of the homosexual community and they’re language practices? Isn’t it in the Christians best interest to constantly keep in mind “2”? And finally, isn’t part of Christianity not to judge others, not to consider them right or wrong, but rather to reflect upon one’s self? Is there any reason why the Chrsitian cannot be progressive in his metaphorical content?

I don’t know? I shall have to think about this some more.

Systemic Truth / Rorty

Since I’m sufficiently a nerd, upon Matt’s insistence I went right out and picked up a copy of Rorty’s “Contingency Irony and Solidarity”. Right off, pg. 5, was the following – which is what I’ve been trying to get at with my notion of systemic truth: (I don't want to comment on this just yet, I merely throw it out there as it gives me a certain feeling of satisfaction - for now anyway.)

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there – cannot exist independently of the human mind – because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true of false. The world on it’s own – unaided by the describing activities of human beings – cannot.

The suggestion that truth, as well as the world, is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language of his own. (So in effect we anthropomorphized objective creation)

On Absolute Truth

Here is another Gem... (CLICK)

On Begging the Question

Matt was kind enough to point me to this little Gem of his... (CLICK)

Correspondence Theory and TAG

I'm going to beat this thing to death for sure.

It occurs to me now that Goobers transcendental argument for God (TAG) assumes that the nature of Truth follows the belief that it is a Correspondence with reality - which of course is a philosophy I dismiss. Now I often talk about correspondence, however not with reality, but within a paradigm of thought, a language game, a community.

If one makes the statement, then, that the laws of logic are absolute (as absolutism in this sense implies correspondence), it would have to then pre-suppose that the system we're using to mirror that reality is adequate to do so. In other words, prior to certainty, one must have a sense of 'a priori' certainty regarding the nature of the language and rules for logic that one’s using to reach that reality.

Goober (The Creationist and TAG’ist) was asked:
How do you know your senses or your extrasensory perception were[was] reliable prior to and at the time of your revelation?
(NOTE: Goober believes that without God, one cannot have certainty, however with God, one has certainty)

So I’d like to rephrase just what this question is getting at in by restating the above thoughts:
Again, If we say that we have reached [T]ruth, and for that matter certainty, when our perceptions (and how we reflect them in language using logic and reason) , have successfully mirrored those perceptions with reality; then the question above is trying to flesh out the following from Goober – How can one be certain that the pre-existing language game (system of logic and reason) was adequate to the task of mirroring reality? Part of Goober’s premise on the “proof that God exists” is the axiom that logic and reason are absolute, with no basis for this other then the statement, “Does absolute Truth exist?” Not only is this not a proof of anything (as has been already pointed put in previous posts), but it’s a mere pre-supposition in itself. In other words the first premise helps itself to assuming its own existence and begs the question – yet again, this is given as part of the premise; which is merely to call out something supposedly given.

Goober’s response was as follows (and is quite laughable):
"It’s a package deal :-D God reveals some things to us, such that we can know them for certain...”

It’s a package deal?!? Is he serious? Not only does one have to pre-suppose God in this argument (which is fine, don’t we all) but it pre-supposes the vary thing it uses as proof, BUT WAIT, it’s a PACKAGE DEAL.

Let me quote Rorty again: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Pg. 318, 319:
“…The notion of knowledge as accurate representation lends itself naturally to the notion that certain sorts of representations, certain expressions, certain processes are “basic, “privileged”, and “foundational”. The criticisms of this notion which I have canvassed in the previous chapters are backed up with holistic arguments of the form: We will not be able to isolate basic elements except on the basis of a prior knowledge of the whole fabric within which these elements occur. Thus we will not be able to substitute the notion of “accurate representation” (element-by-element) for that of successful accomplishment of a practice. Our choice of elements will be dictated by our understanding of the practice, rather then the practice’s being “legitimated” by a “rational reconstruction” out of elements. This holist line of argument says that we shall never be able to avoid the “hermeneutic circle”…”

BUT WAIT:
Here Goober will respond, “A prior knowledge of the whole fabric within which these elements occur is a certainty granted by God; we don’t need this prior knowledge, God allows us to be certain of them.” (It’s a package deal, remember)

However this simply won’t do as the TAG argument goes from having premises which lead to a conclusion (God), to now beginning with and pre-supposing the conclusion as a means of validating the premise – and of course this horribly begs the question, it’s nonsense...

So the argument according to TAG becomes:
1.) God exists

(so what)

SIDE NOTE:
There’s another contradiction in the TAG line of reasoning which seems to arise out of the mixing and mingling of [T]ruth as correspondence with certainty as the result of a transcendental pre-supposition. In other words, by invoking a transcendental being as a means of certainty in one’s representations, it begs the further question as to how the transcendental being corresponds to reality beyond a mere subjective claim. This has the effect of blowing any evidence that we have adequate truths which correspond to reality completely out of the water along with the whole notion that we have certainty.

Essences and Word Play

So I have two things on my mind, first this post from Sam HERE.
The basic premise is a stance of non-realism, where nothing exists apart from our knowledge and language about a particular thing; more importantly for the discussion, God doesn't exist outside of our faith and what it is we say about him. Now of course I agree with Sam where he states that this position ignors the mystical tradition.

Secondly there is this snippet from Richard Rorty's "Philosophy and Social Hope":
“To treat beliefs not as representation but has habits of action, and words not as representations but as tools, is to make it pointless to ask, ‘Am I discovering or inventing, making or finding?’ There is no point in dividing up the organisms’ interaction with the environment in this way. Consider an example:
We normally say that a bank account is a social construction rather than an object in the natural world, whereas a giraffe is an object in the natural world rather then a social construction. Bank accounts are made, giraffes are found. Now the truth in this view is simply that if there had been no human beings there would still have been giraffes, whereas there would have been no bank accounts. But this causal independence of giraffes from humans does not mean that giraffes are what they are apart from human needs and interests.

On the contrary, we describe giraffes in the way we do, as giraffes, because of our needs and interests. We speak a language which includes the word ‘giraffe’ because it suits our purposes to do so. The same goes for words like ‘organ’, ‘cell’, ‘atom’ and so on……”

I have then, one simple question in mind; what about the essence of a thing? In other words, to say that God is nothing more then what we say ignores the phenomenal component that lead to the language in the first place – where the phenomenal component may be said to be some pre-existent essence that we’re trying to communicate. I could say the same thing about the giraffe; sure, what we say about the giraffe to a certain extent is based on pragmatic intentions, what other way of speaking about it would make sense. Then I could say, well, certainly there is some essence of giraffe-ness which exists outside of our language and knowledge about it, and to reduce it to mere, let’s say utility, is to miss the point of something seemingly profound.

But, as the pragmatist might say, “Who cares?” To say that God exists, to say that giraffes have essences simply isn’t meaningful, and seemingly in no way useful, so why even consider it?

This gets back to my central question, “Is religious language valid?” And, “What’s it good for?”

I’m going to sleep on this for now……